Friday, September 9, 2016

2016 Santa Rosa Marathon Analysis

It seems that the Santa Rosa Marathon has had it's fair share of missteps in the last 4 years. Three out of the last four years, to be specific. If you want to read more about the latest mess and previous years' issues, this Runners World article goes through them in detail.

It seems that even the BAA might have had enough because they no longer list the race as a "Top Feeder" and it was there when I pulled the list down a couple months ago.

This year, a large number of faster runners were led off course and ended up tacking on up to a mile extra (and from what I understand, there was also another group that maybe have been led off course but ended up short). It seems as though the race management didn't employ enough course marshalls at key turns.

Unfortunately and not unsurprisingly, the BAA is not going to accept adjusted times. For the number of potential BQs that were affected, it's small in the grand scheme of the BAA (so, the tens of thousands of BQs in the world). Without definitive data on how much to credit, it just gets messy. Lots of folks could claim they were part of this mistake even though they weren't. So it makes sense to me that they aren't going to accept it. It does suck though, for those folks who were using this race as their last chance to qualify (side note: this is why I am running CIM this year - I'm not even going to wait until Boston to try because you never know what weather you get and I want as many chances as possible to make it in).

Onto the numbers.

AG Group

2016 Qualifiers

2016 AG Total

Percentage

2017 Qualifiers

2017 AG Total

Percentage

F18-34

57

225

25.33%

47

199

23.62%

F35-39

22

94

23.40%

18

93

19.35%

F40-44

20

81

24.69%

9

69

13.04%

F45-49

25

87

28.74%

16

83

19.28%

F50-54

12

62

19.35%

12

65

18.46%

F55-59

9

35

25.71%

5

41

12.20%

F60-64

6

13

46.15%

2

13

15.38%

F65-69

2

7

28.57%

2

3

66.67%

F70-74

0

0

0.00%

0

1

0.00%

F75-79

0

0

0.00%

0

0

0.00%

F80+

0

0

0.00%

0

0

0.00%

M18-34

51

212

24.06%

23

159

14.47%

M35-39

16

106

15.09%

9

86

10.47%

M40-44

26

125

20.80%

14

98

14.29%

M45-49

31

127

24.41%

28

104

26.92%

M50-54

28

116

24.14%

26

106

24.53%

M55-59

21

83

25.30%

16

68

23.53%

M60-64

10

37

27.03%

11

45

24.44%

M65-69

4

19

21.05%

8

31

25.81%

M70-74

1

5

20.00%

1

6

16.67%

M75-79

0

2

0.00%

0

3

0.00%

M80+

1

1

100.00%

0

0

0.00%

Totals

342

1437

23.80%

247

1273

19.40%

So, we see a good sized drop here: 27.78% decrease.

The number of finishers are also down so it isn't all attributed to the off-course error. The rate is down about 4.4% - that may be a good representation of how many were affected by the error as far as not making the standard (because those well ahead of the standard were probably still affected but still BQ'd).

Margin

2016

Percentage

2017

Percentage

<1 minute

21

6.14%

16

6.48%

1-2 minutes

34

9.94%

13

5.26%

2-3 minutes

34

9.94%

31

12.55%

3-4 minutes

23

6.73%

17

6.88%

4-5 minutes

23

6.73%

17

6.88%

5-10 minutes

78

22.81%

59

23.89%

10-20 minutes

79

23.10%

60

24.29%

20> minutes

50

14.62%

34

13.77%

Totals

342

247

This race both years has a big Squeaker Pack. 39.74% last year and 38.06% this year. Sort of lends credence to the idea that this is a last ditch effort for people on the border of qualifying. I wonder if Erie and Lehigh will show similar numbers.

Looks like we'll be seeing the gap growing as far as not enough qualifiers in the analysis to match up with the sub 2:28 margin group of the 2016 qualification year.

Overall Totals

AG Group

2016 Qualifiers

20156 AG Total

Percentage

2017 Qualifiers

2017 AG Total

Percentage

F18-34

5207

41391

12.58%

4375

40255

10.87%

F35-39

2365

16561

14.28%

2123

16805

12.63%

F40-44

2352

15761

14.92%

1995

15486

12.88%

F45-49

2401

11500

20.88%

2102

11972

17.56%

F50-54

1501

7585

19.79%

1414

8112

17.43%

F55-59

793

3812

20.80%

694

3914

17.73%

F60-64

350

1572

22.26%

354

1696

20.87%

F65-69

102

494

20.65%

114

539

21.15%

F70-74

21

137

15.33%

20

161

12.42%

F75-79

5

30

16.67%

1

22

4.55%

F80+

1

4

25.00%

4

10

40.00%

M18-34

4701

37042

12.69%

3722

35180

10.58%

M35-39

2325

19528

11.91%

1936

18890

10.25%

M40-44

2658

21226

12.52%

2206

20085

10.98%

M45-49

3203

17975

17.82%

2671

17979

14.86%

M50-54

2498

14287

17.48%

2081

14294

14.56%

M55-59

1641

8713

18.83%

1441

9088

15.86%

M60-64

997

4631

21.53%

935

4782

19.55%

M65-69

446

1927

23.14%

424

2060

20.58%

M70-74

138

639

21.60%

107

641

16.69%

M75-79

25

171

14.62%

30

185

16.22%

M80+

7

39

17.95%

10

43

23.26%

Totals

33737

225025

14.99%

28759

222199

12.94%

There is a 13.67% decrease in the rate of qualification, and a 14.76% decrease in the number of qualifiers.

Margin

2016

Percentage

2017

Percentage

<1 minute

1876

5.56%

1622

5.64%

1-2 minutes

1858

5.51%

1621

5.64%

2-3 minutes

1874

5.55%

1567

5.45%

3-4 minutes

1699

5.04%

1442

5.01%

4-5 minutes

1597

4.73%

1332

4.63%

5-10 minutes

7078

20.98%

6151

21.39%

10-20 minutes

9465

28.06%

7987

27.77%

20> minutes

8290

24.57%

7037

24.47%

Totals

33737

28759

The Squeaker Pack is marginally is nearly identical: 26.39% vs 26.37%

I ran the query to get the number of runners who qualified with 148 seconds or better for the 2016 qualification year and got: 29087

Which is still greater than the total number of qualifiers in the 2017 qualification year dataset, and means that the prediction is still no cut off.

3 comments:

Did a quick look at Big cottonwood has 387 qualifiers this year versus 317 for last year. Weather was perfect. Last chance BQ.2 grand rapids, Mi got 51 qualifiers versus 66 last year. Still got no results from last chance BQ chicagoland as their weather like grand rapids was horrible. Weather for Erie looks OK, if not perfect for tomorrow. VIA is looking horrible.

This is encouraging. Thanks for crunching the numbers. I'm running Erie tomorrow. I BQ'D may 1st at Goodlife Toronto Marathon with a 1:18 buffer, but running tomorrow to improve that time. Weather looks good!

I ran the Last Chance BQ.2 Chicagoland today (9/10). It was carnage with rain and high humidity for most of the race. Only 188 finishers and almost 100 DNFs. I counted about 65 or so qualifiers. Last year there were almost 150 qualifiers. I managed to qualify with a 1:35 buffer. Like my chances...but its going to be a looooong 3 weeks!